Argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Argument - Essay Example This paper begins with the basic argument that organizations are forced to deploy surveillance mechanisms in their workplaces because of unethical behavior of employees during work. However, personal confidentiality could be defined as a right of an individual to freely live his life without the interference from anyone else until he permits someone to do so (Bagdanskis & Sartatavicius, 2012). Organizations are bound to follow ethical code of conduct by the laws prevailing in the US. The basic purpose of this research is to decide whether these surveillance systems used by companies to monitor job activities of their staff are ethical or not. They do not appear to be as such from the first glance. However, final conclusion will be made after having analyzed available literature on ethical perspective of organizations’ employee surveillance systems. Fundamentally, organizations are paying their employees for the work they do, so they have every right to monitor them in the offi ce because, while employees are working, they are considered as an intellectual property of the organization; therefore, organization possess every right to ensure that they are duly working on the tasks assigned to them. On the other hand, organizations must pay their employees on time, provide them friendly and healthy environment to work in and should take the responsibility of providing health insurance. Once an organization fulfills its side of the contract, then it wins the right to engage its employees within the boundaries of their job description. The above argument may appear to be vicious. However, scholars must attempt to understand the basic goal of the organization that is to maximize the shareholders’ return. In order to fulfill this promise, organization cannot allow its employees to waste organizational resources on wishful internet surfing, for instance. At the same time, this paper urges its readers not to take this literary effort as an attempt to issue a free license to organizations to violate human rights through enslaving the workers by intruding on their privacy. On the contrary, it is highlighting a basic right of organizations to direct the professional endeavors of their employees. According to Evens (2007), more than eighty percent of American organizations installed mechanisms to monitor employees’ activities, which include close circuit cameras and other similar devices. In reaction to this trend many of the scholars rose voices in order to eliminate this practice. But they are not willing to appreciate the positive impact of this practice on employees’ productivity. Additionally, employees are saved from old fashioned scolding from their bosses as due to technological interventions the latter can monitor the former ones remotely. At the same time, covert surveillance motivates empolyees to keep on working because of constant monitoring in their offices. However, nowadays polite management is a norm, but this humbleness thrives on the concept of paycut due to any professional deficiency on the behalf of employees. On the other hand, organizations are expected to communicate the workplace management rules in order to keep their employees well informed about the mechanism of control, which firms tend to deploy (Dillon, Hamilton, Thomas, & Usry, 2008). However, there is a statistically inverse relation between workplace surveillance and job performance measures